Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

"'There was a writer who lived in my country [Sri Lanka] several centuries ago,' Missy told him. 'His vision of space still survives, even if it is a bit technically out of date. His books inspired me to work on getting into Starfleet.'

'Arthur C. Clarke,' Jake said. 'I've read his books myself.' "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

Iowa

1760

Baxter, Stephen. Voyage. New York: HarperCollins (1996); pg. 33.

"In 1970, Ralph Gershon was twenty-five years old. He had grown up on a farm in Iowa, surrounded by near poverty and toil, dreaming of flight. As a kid he'd gone to Mars with Weinbaum and Clarke and Burroughs and Bradbury... "

Pg. 36: "'Not God God, I mean GOD God. The God beyond God.' Georgina splayed her fingers, ticking off her pantheon. 'The Spirit of Absolute Being, the World Mother, the Wisdom Goddess, the Overmind, the Primal Hermaphrodite.' "; Pg. 37: "Aberrant or not, this was the child that was his, no other, this one, whether she came from a cabbage patch, the Overmind, or the brow of Zeus. " [The 'Overmind' is apparently a reference to Clarke's novel Childhood's End]

"How do you relate to a guy whose ancestors have been trained by aliens for six thousand years? 'Say, that 2001 film is still playing a few blocks away. I haven't seen it yet.' Had Seven... ever gone to the movies? She had no idea. 'Maybe we can hit a matinee sometime?' "

Pg. 9: "How do you relate to a guy whose ancestors have been trained by aliens for six thousand years? 'Say, that 2001 film is still playing a few blocks away. I haven't seen it yet.' Had Seven... ever gone to the movies? She had no idea. 'Maybe we can hit a matinee sometime?' ";

Pg. 275: "'A movie sounds great,' she enthused... 'But how 'bout we hit Funny Girl instead of 2001? After the trip we just took, I'm afraid it won't live up to the real thing!' "

"An astronaut's glove from one of the Gemini flights was still in orbit, tumbling from its original shove centuries before. The high Clarke orbits, the geosynchronous ellipses which Arthur C. Clarke envisioned long before the age of space began, were filled with communication and television relays, giant antennas for contacting distant probes, linking the cities on Mars and the stations near Jupiter and Saturn... "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

United Kingdom

1996

Bear, Greg. The Forge of God. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 40.

"'An audience beyond science books. Dabbling in science fiction.'

'Not dabbling. I've read science fiction since I was a lad in Somerset. Arthur Clarke was born in Somerset, you know...' "

"'...but let me see if there's something you... I remember now!' he brightened. 'See if you can find me that issue of Galaxy from the summer of 1973. I've been dying to read the end of that Clarke novel.'

'Who are all these people?'

'Science fiction writers,' he said with reverence. "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

USA

1963

Grimwood, Ken. Replay. New York: Arbor House (1986); pg. 130.

"Even to Jeff's eyes it [Starsea, a non-existent movie which plays a significant role in the novel] was years ahead of its time in theme, look, special effects; like an undersea version of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, yet with the warmth and humanity of Truffaut at his best. " [More, pg. 155.]

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

USA

1967

Grimwood, Ken. Replay. New York: Arbor House (1986); pg. 72.

"'You seen 2001 yet?'

'Yeah, but I didn't know what it was all about, and it was kind of draggy up to the end. I liked Petulia better; you know, with Julie Christie?' "

"Dear Miss Morrison:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I am very confused by your letter. Who is Isaac Asimov? I have checked with several publishers and none of them has heard of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, although the address on the envelope was correct for this magazine.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;However, I was very impressed with your story and will be pleased to submit it for our next issue. Seldom do we receive a story combining such virtues as a well-conceived plot, plenty of human interest, and a delightfully subtle brand of humor.

Yours truly,George H. Scithers,Editor,Arthur C. Clarke's Science Fiction Magazine " [This entire story, two excerpts of which are in this DB, is told in letter form. Asimov repeatedly rejects successive revisions of the story submitted, and the time traveler changes history to eliminate Asimov, and get his story accepted by Clarke.]

"It was a rocket ship with eight-hundred pounds of freeze-dried... in its nose. It was going to be fired at the Andromeda Galaxy, two-million light years away. The ship was named the Arthur C. Clarke, in honor of a famous space pioneer. " [Also pg. 247-248, 250.]

'How could I forget him?' said Baedecker. 'You dragged me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey five times the year it was at the Cinerama theater in Houston.' It was not an exaggeration. Muldorff had been obsessed with the movie and had insisted on his crewmates repeatedly seeing it with him. Before their flight, Dave had talked enthusiastically about smuggling an inflatable black monolith along only to 'discover it' buried under the lunar surface during one of their EVAs. A shortage of inflatable black monoliths had frustrated their plan so Dave had contented himself with having Mission Control awaken them at the end of each sleep period by playing the opening chords of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Baedecker had thought it mildly amusing the first few times. "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

USA

1989

Simmons, Dan. Phases of Gravity. New York: Bantam (1989); pg. 247.

"The quickly changing lines of data reminded Baedecker of the Pan Am passenger shuttle with its flashing cockpit graphics in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dave had insisted they see that movie a dozen times during the winter of 1968... " [More.]

"...Schmidt replied, 'I think it was Sherlock Holmes who pointed out that when you have eliminated all the possible answers, then the impossible answer is the correct one. Or was it Arthur C. Clarke?' "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

Washington, D.C.

1999

Anderson, Jack. Millennium. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 80.

"He stared at the headlines which were pinned to a cork-covered wall in his office... THE TRUTH ABOUT MARS: WHAT THE CIA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW, heralded another. A third revealed: '2001' MONOLITH MAY BE A REALITY, NEW LUNAR SURVEY SAYS--HOW MUCH DID AUTHOR CLARKE REALY KNOW? "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

Washington, D.C.

1999

Anderson, Jack. Millennium. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 273.

"'...And I'm gonna make a big comeback concert at midnight of January first, 2000.

'No, 2001,' Gallagher corrected. 'Remember, Elvis always opened his shows with the theme from the movie 2001. You know, bwam, bwam, bwaaaaah--'

Alan was unimpressed by Gallagher's singing. 'I never saw that show,' he said.

'Unimportant. Just remember 2001.'

'I started to watch it once, on HBO. I thought it was supposed to be about spaceships. It was about gorillas hitting each other with sticks.'

Gallagher rolled his eyes. 'Your phenomenal comeback tour is when?'

'Midnight, January first, 2001.' "

science fiction - Arthur C. Clarke

Washington: Seattle

1993

Busby, F. M. The Singularity Project. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 49.

"After dinner, Dauna and I ran into an old movie on cable, 2001, it was. She watched it; I kept going to sleep. That film certainly takes a long time to do not much of anything.

Pg. 66: "As Arthur C. Clarke remarked, it is difficult to imagine even the most fervent of nationalists not reconsidering his views as he sees the Earth fade from a faint crescent to a tiny point of light, lost among millions of stars. "; Pg. 75: The enormous popularity of science and of such movies as 2001: A Space Odyssey is indicative of the unexplored scientific enthusiasm. "

"My friend Arthur C. Clarke had a problem. He was writing a major motion picture with Stanley Kubrick of Dr. Strangelove fame. It was to be called Journey Beyond the Stars, and a small crisis in the story development had arisen... " [More about the development of 2001: A Space Odyssey, pg. 182-185.]

"I sighed and looked around the room. It, too, looked completely real. I smiled, recalling the French Provincial room in Kubrick's 2001. Was I being held captive by some alien being? I had to chuckle at the thought. "

Pg. 197: "An idea in a fictional story by an astronomer named Arthur C. Clarke was not new. The concept of supplying oxygen to a spaceship with plants that breathed carbon dioxide and gave off oxygen was as old as the first fanciful plans for space stations and family-sized space arks. And when unimaginative little Arthur Allen wrote it down in one of his daily reports, Luthor winced at not having thought of it himself. "; Pg. 198: "It all came down to Arthur Clarke's idea of lining all unused surface space inside the bulb of the craft with green vegetation... "

"The resurrection was not a miracle, only a phenomenon so far beyond the ability of Earthly science as to seem like one, an in vivo validation of Clarke's law. " [Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.]

"This defining moment in the history of SF is not without precedent. Besides Madame Blavatsky's insistence on such a future evolutionary leap into the sublime, there is a more obvious precedent, found in Clarke's own novel of 1953, and his first enduring contribution to the genre, Childhood's End, at the conclusion of which the children of Earth 'evolve,' in one planet-annihilating blast of 'inconceivable metamorphosis,' and unite with the cosmic 'Overmind.' " [More.]

"Ringmaster resembled another spaceship: the fictional Discovery, the Jupiter probe from the classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was not surprising that it should. Both ships had been designed from similar parameters, though one sailed only on celluloid. Cirocco was EVA to remove the last of the solar reflection panels which ... "

"This had not occurred to me. Of course, a true Tenth Generation system such as myself does not want to die: Asimov's 'must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second law,' and all that--not that my behavior is defined by anything as pedestrian as the Laws of Robotics. "

science fiction - Asimov

California

2009

England, Terry. Rewind. New York: Avon Books (1997); pg. 251.

"As the show's theme song played, Miranda had a sudden thought and looked at the monitor of herself and tried to see what books were showing in the background. A Brief History of Time. Good. Wonderful Life. Appropriate. Origin of Species. Excellent. A tattered paperback copy of The Human Brain by Isaac Asimov, a book she had read a long time ago and that perhaps had gotten her started on this long trail. Chuck Amuck. Oops. So that's where that silly book wen . . . too late now. . . . "

science fiction - Asimov

California: Sacramento

1997

Burton, Levar. Aftermath. New York: Warner Books (1997); pg. vii.

Pg. vii: "AUTHOR'S NOTE

I'm a big fan of the science fiction genre... the masters in the field. Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein... "

science fiction - Asimov

Connecticut

1960

King, Stephen. Hearts in Atlantis. New York: Scribner (1999); pg. 65.

"Bobby felt there were a billion science-fiction novels alone in the adult section that he wanted to read. Take Isaac Asimov, for instance. Under the name of Paul French, Mr. Asimov wrote science-fiction novels for kids about a space pilot named Lucky Starr, and they were pretty good. Under his own name he had written other novels, even better ones. At least three of them were about robots. Bobby loved robots. Bobby the Robot in Forbidden Planet was one of the all-time great movie characters, in his opinion... and Mr. Asimov's were almost as good. Bobby thought he would be spending a lot of time with them in the summer ahead. (Sully called this great writer Isaac Ass-Move, but of course Sully was almost totally ignorant about books.) "

"...the ancient Japanese concept of the Zen robot? The sacred tool of civilization. The samurai's blade, the poet's quill. Of course you are much more. You are a sentient being--a consciousness. We modestly aspire here to one day raise our machines to that estate. In the endeavor, we adhere to Hasegawa's seven rules of robots, more complex and comprehensive than Asimov's three.' "

"...who got out his Astounding and started to read. The newest Heinlein serial had ended the month before, but stories by Asimov, Robert Moore Williams, del Rey, Hubbard, and Clement were plenty to keep him entertained. "

"But Aum does have a specific SF connection in the work of Isaac Asimov, whose Foundation series provided a crucial element of the Aum mythology. In Aum's version, Asahara takes on the role of Asimov's Hari Seldon, a genius who discovers the laws of 'psychohistory,' which predicts, infallibly, that 'interstellar wars will be endless. Interstellar trade will decay; population will decline; worlds will lose touch with the main body of the Galaxy.' The answer to this threat is a secret society of subsidiary geniuses to act as guardians of civilization's flame during the destined dark ages.

'The similarities [of Asimov's Foundation] to Aum and its guru's quest were remarkable,' note David Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, in an authoritative history of the cult. 'In an interview, Murai [one of Aum's inner circle] would state matter-of-factly that Aum was using the Foundation as the blueprint for the cult's long-term plans. " [More]

Pg. 181: "Here ends the manuscript of Tik-Tok's autobiography, published on teletext as Me, Robot. The following chapter appears only in later editions, published after 2094. "; pg. 182: "His laughter sounded like rapid snoring. 'No arguing with a best seller, Tik. And Me, Robot is not only selling well, it's hitting the public hard...

'A second factor is, as I mentioned already, the popular appeal of Me, Robot. You're a folk hero...' " [Fictional book named after Asimov's I, Robot]

Pg. 219: "He saw me and waved hello, and then went on talking to Asa Akimisov, Ph.D. (A-K-I-M-I-S-O-V, please and never mind the Akimesian, or Akimsiov.)... Akimisov got up on the platform, with his neck sticking out of his collar like a potted palm (he had lost forty pounds, again) and began telling jokes. Ace is the second funniest man in Medusa... Akimisov, who writes nothing but the most heavily thoughtful fiction in the business, bubbles with humor all the time, a poor man's Sam Levenson. ";

Pg. 220: "Akimisov, as m.c., delivered the final words. He bowed, straightened, and his pants fell down. " [More.]

'He's not my friend,' said Rubin. 'He clings to me out of helpless admiration.' ";

Pg. 168: "'...It seems that Lester del Rey--'

Rubin interrupted. 'Who?'

'Lester del Rey. He's a science fiction writer.'

'Another one of those?' said Rubin. 'Never heard of him.'

'Well, he's no Asimov,' admitted Peterborough, 'but he's all right. Anyway, the way he got started was once when he read a science fiction story and thought it was terrible. He said to his girl, 'Hell, I can write something better...' "

"...next to a signed and slipcased leather Asimov Forward the Foundation... "

science fiction - Asimov

Pennsylvania

1970

Panshin, Alexei. "How Can We Sink When We Can Fly? " in Farewell To Yesterday's Tomorrow. New York: Berkley Publishing Corp. (1975; c. 1971); pg. 111.

"'Well,' said Rob. 'How badly are you stuck?'

'Stuck,' I said. 'I'm doing a story based on an idea of Isaac Asimov for an anthology of new stories.'

'You're a hack,' said Rob. 'You work for money.'

'Right,' I said. 'I work to live, and live to work. No, my problem is that I want to respect Asimov's idea without following it to the letter. I guess the problem is that I can't see any way to get from our now to his future. When I listen to the news, I wonder about any future at all. So I sit in front of the typewriter, but i don't write. I'll find the story, I'll see the way, but right now I'm still trying to find my beginning.'

'Don't brood about it,' said Leigh. 'Sit down and write it the simplest way.' Kind advice, because in spite of what Leigh may sometimes say about her own work, that's not the way she writes. " [Other refs. to trying to write an s.f. story, not in DB.]

science fiction - Asimov

Pennsylvania

1970

Panshin, Alexei. "How Can We Sink When We Can Fly? " in Farewell To Yesterday's Tomorrow. New York: Berkley Publishing Corp. (1975; c. 1971); pg. 113.

"'...I pick one or the other up in the morning, read a paragraph or a page, and then I think about the [Isaac] Asimov story.'

'Oh, you lucky writers,' Leigh said. 'Your time is your own.'

Rob finally let me off the hook. 'Let me see what Asimov wrote when we get to your place. Maybe we can talk it out.' " [This story is about an author, Panshin himself, considering how to fulfill Isaac Asimov's request for a story for a new anthology. Other refs. to Asimov by name: pg. 118, 120.]

science fiction - Asimov

Pennsylvania

1970

Panshin, Alexei. "How Can We Sink When We Can Fly? " in Farewell To Yesterday's Tomorrow. New York: Berkley Publishing Corp. (1975; c. 1971); pg. 118.

"I handed him the Asimov proposal. 'Here, read. This is the relevant part.' "

We can ask, Tozzo decided. He made his way over to one of the young women wearing a blond wig and green leotards. 'WHERE IS DOCTOR ASIMOV?' he asked clearly in the argot of the times... " [More refs. to Asimov. This story refers to him, as well as other major s.f. writers.]

"Dear Dr. Asimov:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Imagine my delight when I spotted your new science fiction magazine on the newsstands. I have been a fan of yours for many, many year, and I naturally wasted no time in buying a copy. I wish you every success in the new venture.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In your second issue I read with interest your plea for stories from new authors. While no writer myself, I have had a time traveler living with me for the past two weeks (he materialized in the bathtub without clothes or money, so I felt obliged to offer him shelter), and he has written a story of life on earth as it will be in the year 5000.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Before he leaves this time frame, it would give him great pleasure to see his story in print--I hope you will feel able to make this wish come true.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Yours sincerely,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nancy Morrison (Miss) "

"Dear Miss Morrison:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I am very confused by your letter. Who is Isaac Asimov? I have checked with several publishers and none of them has heard of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, although the address on the envelope was correct for this magazine.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;However, I was very impressed with your story and will be pleased to submit it for our next issue. Seldom do we receive a story combining such virtues as a well-conceived plot, plenty of human interest, and a delightfully subtle brand of humor.

Yours truly,George H. Scithers,Editor,Arthur C. Clarke's Science Fiction Magazine " [This entire story, two excerpts of which are in this DB, is told in letter form. Asimov repeatedly rejects successive revisions of the story submitted, and the time traveler changes history to eliminate Asimov, and get his story accepted by Clarke.]

[This entire story, pg. 23-27, may be a comical riff about Isaac Asimov.] Pg. 23: Author's introduction to story: "I have disguised the real identity of the central figure in this story, but not so well, I'm afraid, that an assiduous reader cannot find it out. (Actually, I had two people in mind, neither one of whom is or ever was named Azimuth Backfiler.) The story is one of my favorites because of its good-humored malice toward an old friend, and also because, like certain works of Jorge Luis Borges, it is a review of an imaginary book. "; Pg. 23: "The recently published memoirs of Azimuth Backfiler provide a fascinating glimpse into the life of a little-known genius. The son of an eccentric experimental educator, Azimuth graduated from MIT at the age of seven and obtained his first doctorate when he was nine. While still in his teens, he invented the steam-powered crossbow... and the edible typewriter. "

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